Short post on time

I don't know why but I was thinking about time the other day. Mainly about when the day starts - midnight. But as most people get up when its daylight, this means they've been sleeping for the first 6-8 hours of the day. Just seems a bit odd [1]. Daylight savings is another thing that confuses me slightly, coming up to winter it seems to suddenly take away any sunlight in the late afternoon, not really saving it at all [2]. 


I remember reading somewhere about a proposal to have a 28 hour day instead of a 24 hour one. This ended up as 4 days of working during the week (but longer days) and still 2 days of weekend. The main argument for changing it was because people are staying up late anyway and probably not getting enough sleep as it is. That and there aren't that many professions that really require the daylight to work. I am currently sitting typing this and it is pitch black outside, but thanks to the wonder of light bulbs, I can still work as if it were full daylight outside. 


On a similar train of thought, I wondered about changing global time to just one time. Switch to the 24 hour clock, and have all countries use the same time. So when it is 02:20 in the UK, it is 02:20 in Russia. The difference would obviously be how much daylight there is in that particular country. It would just mean that instead sunrise being at, say, 7AM, sunrise would be a normal occurrence at, say 13:15 in one country and 22:45 in another. Its not the time that would be changing, just how we humans are labelling it. 


OK, maybe that wasn't such a short post as I originally thought; I may have spent more time writing this (hah) then I initially thought I would. 




[1] I mean nowadays. I think the system being used is in place because 'midday' is the middle of the day (obviously), when the sun is the highest in the sky, back when sun dials were being used it might have made a bit more sense. But then again, if using a 12 hour clock, midday comes at the highest number and not the middle one...


[2] I know, I know, it moves to the morning, but come on, who gets up that early? Pfft.